"Judge Benedict found something buried in the desert," LeBeau continued, "and he brought it back with him."
The billionaire stretched out a well-manicured hand toward a tombstone that bore nothing but the faded legend RESURGAM. He pressed his palm against the stone, brief, silent lightning flashed through the graveyard, and the crowd moved back in alarm.
Something new hung in the air beside LeBeau. A squat, black metal capsule, featureless except for a thick glass panel in the center. It hung in the air, defying gravity, and radiating a peculiar cold that made the nearest people shudder, despite the early evening heat.
"The Paiute Indians had a limited vocabulary," LeBeau said arrogantly, "But every culture has a name for the miraculous. They called it Aweka Patuu Suuba – 'The Star That Sleeps'. Their legends say it fell from the sky hundreds of years ago. The Paiute refuse to enter that part of the desert where it lay, but Judge Benedict did, and he dug it from the sand with his bare hands."
"Only the LeBeau family, six individuals in the White House, and the Director of E.A.G.L.E are aware of its existence," continued the Vice-President. "We are the only ones with access to the dimensional lock that keeps it parallel to our space-time."
"This is not the only marvel," LeBeau said, walking closer to the device and gazing through the panel. In the dark inner chamber, a fragment of black, pitted rock could just be seen. "Two generations of accumulated wealth later, the Elders found a way to utilize its…miraculous properties. We accidentally split the meteorite into two halves. One half is here. The other half was placed in a very well-known area, hidden inside a certain Manhattan landmark, to boost the occult powers of the grid."
"What landmark?" someone at the back shouted.
LeBeau grinned and waved a hand, indicating the tombs. "At the beginning of the Twentieth Century, my ancestors laid a focal point along the Dragon Lines. A statue holding a crystal. That is the statue of Prometheus outside the Rockefeller Center, which stands directly in the path of the rays of the setting sun. When it was constructed, my grandparents placed the second fragment of the meteorite inside the golden flame that the statue holds, as a focal point along the land-lines. They thought the symbolism was appropriate."
"That's enough," said the Vice-President. "The ladies and gentlemen don't need to hear any more."
"I think we do!" a female voice yelled.
"I tend to agree." LeBeau continued to smile politely. "For decades, that mineral within the statue – a substance which does not belong to this planet – has been quietly gathering power. Now it has acquired enough for my own plans, and it is time to start utilizing that power, making your authority irrelevant. This evening – July 13th, 1977 – the sun shall set, and rise upon a new age."
The sky was darkening as he had spoken. A resentful and slightly scared muttering spread through the group. The Police Commissioner looked at his watch. "We're missing the damned party for this crap?"
LeBeau looked at his own watch: 8:37 pm. He lifted his hand skyward, and a second later, the lights across the city went out.
Everything. The offices in the skyscrapers dwarfing the church, the lights on top of their roofs, the lamps on the driveway and the light fixtures in the window of the church behind them – all flickered into oblivion. The group stood in the sudden dusk of the evening.
The group of celebrities gasped and muttered in alarm.
"What have you done?" someone cried.
LeBeau simply smiled in reply.
"Listen, Mr. LeBeau," the Vice-President said, tension rising in his voice. "We understand that you are one of the leading…intellects in the nation, if not the world. We also understand that we're only here because you've got something on us that could destroy our careers if it ever went public. But if I could speak frankly…isn't this all rather pointless? If you patented your discoveries and marketed them legitimately, instead of taunting us with them and throwing them at the Over-Heroes, you'd find it a lot more…well, profitable! Don't you think?"
LeBeau frowned in annoyance.
"Now please," the Vice-President continued, "Whatever you've done here, and however you've done it, we're impressed. Really. Now would you mind switching the power back on, so that we – and the rest of Manhattan – can get on with our lives?"
In reply, LeBeau stretched out his hand and placed it, palm flat, against the glass panel. A loud crack split the air, and with a hiss like dozens of fire hoses, a cloud of silver smoke poured out of every part of the black holding device. The crowd screamed in alarm, ducking holding up hands and arms in front of their faces; but the cloud enveloped them with incredible speed, spreading through the cemetery, turning human forms into vague outlines and shadows.
Within seconds the silvery cloud had dissipated, melting into the ground, the graves, the stones of the church. LeBeau and his chauffeur stood calmly in the fading sunlight, gazing around them.
The Vice-President and his crowd of companions stood silently to attention, their faces slack, their eyes blank, a white metallic sheen covering every part of exposed skin.
LeBeau nodded in satisfaction. "Now get back into your cars," he called in a clear, ringing voice, "and follow us."
Moving like sleepwalkers, the good and the great of Manhattan began to walk out of the cemetery.
LeBeau and Bishop trod the gravel path to where their own limousine waited. The chauffeur donned his peaked cap and seated himself at the wheel. LeBeau reclined on the back seat, smiling in satisfaction.
"Where to now, Mr. LeBeau?"
The billionaire stared out of the window at the sunset. It was red as blood, and the skyscrapers around them were now monolithic blocks of shadow. Somewhere, police sirens began to howl.
"To Utopia," he said quietly.
TWO
NYPD Lieutenant Luke Cambridge reached out of the car window, slapped the magnetically mounted signal light onto the roof of the car, and gunned the motor. The '74 Buick shot down Columbus Avenue, headlights and howling siren shattering the night.
"Hey Lootenant," Detective Ray Carlini called from the back. "Why ain't we goin' down Fifth Avenue?"
Cambridge peered ahead, his hands on the wheel. He had to be even more alert than ever; with the electricity out across the whole of Manhattan, there were no streetlights. Trash, broken glass, boxes of all sizes had been strewn across the road, and Cambridge was constantly watching for anyone who might run out in front of the car.
"Got reports that a couple of Over-Heroes are slugging it out with someone on that side of Central Park," Cambridge said, his eyes not leaving the road. "Sounds like the Starfish going up against Black Mamba again. We can't go through Yorkville so we're gonna cut down Columbus Avenue then hang a left at West 34th Street."
"Yeah, well, I kinda figure the Empire State is too big to miss, Luke," said Detective Levitt, from the front passenger seat. "So let's just do the job and get out, I got places to be."
Luke glanced at his second-in-command. "What's eating you, Gene?"
"You know my ma and pa run an antique shop over on the East Side. I'm getting worried."
"They got guns?"
"You bet they have. I took my old man out last year and bought one for him. Got a Smith and Wesson."
"Nice gun," Gonzalez said from the back of the car, sitting next to Carlini. "But you ask me, you oughtta get him a shotgun. Hoods don't argue with a shotgun."
Reni Gonzalez knew what he was talking about. The stocky Peurto Rican's father had been a gunsmith in St. Louis, and the son had worked in the family shop before joining the force.
"Yeah, well," Levitt said. "I'll tell him next time. We always got room for more guns."
"They'll be okay," Cambridge said. "Your pa's a good man, he knows how to keep cool when we got shit like this going on."
"Keep cool?" Carlini wound the car window down even further. "I sure wish we could."
Middle of July, 1977; the worst heatwave for years. New York City had stewed, locked down under storm clouds, a st
orm that now blotted out the moon and threatened to unleash its inner fury.
"Nobody knows what's gonna happen tonight, all bets are off," Carlini said. "Every man's gotta stand up and protect his own property. May be some crazy hophead outside lookin' for some cash from the till, lookin' to lift some free sneakers, it's just the luck of the draw."
"Luck ain't got nothin' to do with it," answered Gonzalez. "You ask any three-footed rabbit about luck and see where it gets you. If you got the most guns in the neighborhood, you don't need luck."
"Come on guys, knock it off." Levitt took off his trilby hat, produced a big handkerchief and mopped his brow with it, smoothing back his locks of graying hair. "You're not making me feel any easier. Dammit! I wasn't expecting this shit on a hot summer night."
"Nobody was, Gene," said Cambridge. "Nobody was."
The Empire State loomed up ahead. It should have been a ground-to-sky Modernist canvas, a geometric neon grid of colors flashing and winking in the night; but like all the Manhattan skyscrapers tonight the straight, majestic lines of its bulk were simple, somber line drawings in the ebony black void of the sky.
"A Ten-Seventy One," muttered Levitt irritably, fanning himself with his handkerchief. "We got ourselves a goddamn Ten-Seventy One."
Ten-Seventy One; the NYPD code for a city-wide emergency. What every cop hoped he would never live to hear.
Carlini leant forward in his seat. "What was it like back in '65, Lootenant?"
They had reached the turnoff into West 34th Street. Cambridge saw his own frown in the windshield glass. "Things were different," he said.
November, 1965. The first major electrical blackout that New York City had suffered. Yeah, things had been different all right, Cambridge thought. JFK had been voted back in for a second term. Talks with the Soviets had reached some major concessions. Crime rates were still going down thanks to the Over-Heroes, and E.A.G.L.E. operations in Vietnam had rooted out the worst of the rebels. The UN-supervised construction of Moonbase One was on schedule.
All of that was before the assassinations of Luther King, Johnson, Dylan. Before the explosion that took Philadelphia off the map.
"Things were more peaceful," Cambridge said. "People co-operated. To tell you the truth, with the lights out, most people had a ball."
"Makes you wonder what happened," said Levitt.
"They tried to turn the USA into Utopia, but they turned it into a crock of shit. That's what happened," said Carlini.
Cambridge remembered.
He'd just moved into a new house in Brooklyn with Pam and their son Melvin; Rick hadn't been born yet. When the lights failed they thought a fuse had blown, until he heard the neighbors out in the street talking to each other. They'd felt nervous at first – being the only black family in that particular block – but they'd gone outside, and the whole street got together with candles, chairs, tables, barbeque grills and cooler boxes full of beer to have an impromptu party.
Watching the Over-Heroes light up the sky, dazzling like fireworks, their capes fluttering like flags in the wind. Soldier Blue. Overman. The Future Five. Gauntlet. Giant-Killer. The Morrigan. Things had been simpler then. The public had expected them to watch over the city like modern day gods.
Now here he was, in another blackout, with a cold hard feeling in his gut that told him there would be no party tonight.
Movement up ahead. Dark, running figures bolted out of a doorway on the left and ran across the road. Cambridge swerved the car, pumped the horn and quickly looked back; the open doorway was a jewelry store. Just been looted.
"Go back and bust them?"
"No time," snarled Cambridge. "That was a priority call we got from the Chief."
As they approached the concourse in front of the skyscraper's main entrance, Cambridge saw the flashing red lights of the patrol cars, fire trucks and ambulances forming a cordon across the street. The Buick screeched to a halt and the four cops bundled out. The second car stopped right behind them, and Rizzo, Scarfe, Broadhurst and Cochese got out to joint the rest of their squad.
"Hey, Cochese," said Carlini, "what's up with your necktie? It looks like you've just barfed."
Cochese looked down at the wide kipper of swirling paisley patterns over his gut. "Birthday present from the wife."
"Her next birthday, you get her a dog and a white stick."
"Listen up," said Cambridge. "Scarfe and Cochese, you stay here and secure the perimeter, make sure no reporters get through."
"Can't hear you Lootenant, that tie's too loud."
"Screw you, Carlini!"
"Okay, guys, knock it off. We got a long night ahead."
Cambridge jogged up the stone steps to the lobby, his leather jacket flapping in the hot breeze.The Empire State Building reared above him. He knew it well; he'd been here a few times as a kid, and after starting a family, he and Pam had taken Melvin twice. Promised to take Rick when he was old enough.
Now, the jewel in Manhattan's crown was dark and silent, as somber as a cursed tower in a horror story.
The eight cops switched on their flashlights as they entered the lobby, and waved the beams of light ahead to take in the situation. In the strange half-light, the atrium that rose three floors to the high tiled ceiling looked more like an Art Deco cathedral. In front of them, past the ticket office and the velvet rope railings and the glass case containing the scale model of the building, Cambridge and his men saw a small group of figures near the unmoving escalators, standing and sitting and talking in low, echoing voices.
"Hey." A uniformed figure strode towards them, a helmet under his arm, boots ringing on the marble floor. Cambridge held up the flashlight to see a man in a fire-fighter's uniform, and recognized his short blond hair and piercing blue eyes. "Hey, can you get that flashlight out of my eyes?"
Cambridge swung the beam away and introduced him and his men.
"O'Hallorhan, Captain of Ladder 36 Unit," the fireman said.
"So what's the situation, Captain?"
"The situation is, we don't know what the situation is. All the elevators are out of action, and we have at least a dozen people trapped inside some of the cars. There were about fifty tourists still on the two observation decks when the power cut off. Some of them are walking down, but some of them aren't – they don't feel healthy enough to handle it, and they'd rather stay put 'till the power comes back on."
When it comes back on, said a little voice in Cambridge's head, and how long's that gonna be?
"That's bad enough, but there's something else," continued O'Hallorhan. "Something weird. The civilians who walked down from the observation decks so far said they saw smoke in the stairwells – but none of the fire alarms or sprinklers have gone off, and nobody's seen any flames, from inside the building or outside. I sent a crew of five men up the east staircase to take a look."
"What did they say?" asked Cambridge.
There was an elusive, worried look in O'Hallorhan's eyes. "They haven't reported back yet. I've tried getting through on the radio, but there's nothing but static."
"Goddamn storm coming up," muttered Carlini.
"You sure you're not jerkin' my chain?" Cambridge said.
O'Hallorhan studied Cambridge's face. "Sure, I'm jerkin' your chain. The whole city's out of power and I've got nothing better to do than stand here and make up fairy stories."
"Okay, okay. I'm on it."
Levitt got into a discussion with O'Hallorhan about the technical aspects of opening the elevator cars, and Cambridge swung his flashlight beam around the lobby, taking stock. The scared voices of the rubes who'd already been rescued, their footsteps, everything echoed and played tricks with the ears. The shields and plaques on the wall glittered metallically like the cogs of a giant machine.
The walkie-talkie clipped to his jacket crackled into life.
"Cambridge."
"Luke, do you copy?" It was Captain Sullivan's voice, fighting to be heard over waves of static hissing and spitting.
"Luke, are you on site?"
"No, chief, I'm sitting at home with my thumb up my ass."
"Copy that, wise guy. There's things I've got to tell you."
"Chief, I got a bad feeling about this."
The noise was either a cough or more static. "Since when have you ever had a good feeling?"
"But Chief, this is something the Fire Service can handle, not Homicide. We've got a city going crazy and with all due respect, there are other places we need to be right now."
"Negative, Luke. Shut up and listen. I've had a call from the Mayor's office. E.A.G.L.E is sending an incident squad and I'm ordering you to assist in forensic and other scientific observation. They have declared a Code Resurgam situation. Repeat: Resurgam. ETA ten minutes from now…have reports from other…"
"What the hell you talking about?" Cambridge yelled, but it was too late. Sullivan's words had dissolved in static. He lifted his flashlight, and illuminated the faces of the other three cops, watching him.
"What's goin' on, Lootenant?"
"EAGLE are sending in a team and we're supposed to fetch and carry for them."
"Bull! Shit! Like hell we are."
"Gene," said Cambridge, "you ever heard of a Code Resurgam?"
"Means diddley squat to me."
"Means nothing to me, too."
"What the hell's goin' on, Lootenant?"
Cambridge didn't answer, but turned back to look at the oblong of chiaruscuro sky framed in the open doorway. As he watched, a fork of jagged lightning danced for a split-second above the city, then was gone.
"Resurgam…" he whispered.
THREE
They arrived by flying saucer ten minutes afterwards.
From the ramp leading out of the shining silver torus they stepped into the main lobby, their boot steps echoing on the marble. Cambridge stared in shock. When the Chief had said they were sending an 'incident squad', he hadn't thought it would be the heavy hitters.
Tales From Beyond Tomorrow: Volume One Page 16